File No. 893.51/1837
The Secretary of State to the French Ambassador ( Jusserand)
Excellency: Adverting to your excellency’s note of November 19, 1917,2 communicating the views of your Government touching the negotiations for a loan to China for the purposes of monetary reform, I note that the representative at Peking of the French Government is reported as having reason to believe that the Japanese Government had informed China that the participation of Americans in the loan would not be objected to by Japan, and that your excellency’s Government was of opinion that such a declaration by Japan would but make it more desirable to designate an American group to join in the contemplated transaction.
I scarcely need to inform your excellency that the American Government values very highly the opinion of the French Government. The matter of the currency reform loan to China is one to which the American Government is giving careful consideration. It has regretted to note that there is some doubt about the willingness of the French group to share in the enterprise.
The American Ambassador in Paris was instructed in December last to represent to the Government of France the desire of this Government that the French and British groups concerned in the matter should participate in the then proposed advance by the Japanese banks of two million pounds. Your excellency’s Government replied, as you are doubtless aware, that it shared the views of the American Government and had requested French financial groups interested in Chinese affairs to submit a proposition for participation in the proposed advance.
[Page 144]More recently, however, on January 25, the American Ambassador in Paris reported that M. Pichon, while confirming his previous statement that the French Minister of Finance had given his approval to participation by the French group, had stated that the British group had been unable to overcome the objections of the Finance Minister of the British Government to participation by the British group and that the abstention of that group, in the opinion of M. Pichon, would make it unlikely that the French group would decide to share in the enterprise. M. Pichon stated further that he had requested the French Ambassador in London to endeavor to have the British Government change its decision. Up to the present, however, the Department of State has been uninformed of the result of the representations made by the French Ambassador in London.
Pending further information as to French and British participation in the proposed loan the American Government has taken no decision in regard to the formation of an American group.
Accept [etc.]